Marc VDS’ Sam Lowes has a fightback on his hands at COTA this weekend after a qualifying crash left him 16th on Saturday afternoon.

Lowes’ day started promisingly as he set the sixth fastest time in the morning’s FP3 session. His consistency strong too, with the 31-year old managing eight laps on 2’9 and 2’10 pace.

Luck, however, wasn’t on the Briton’s side in the day’s final qualifying action. Encountering yellow flags in the first two laps of his run he then crashed at high speed in the third corner with just three minutes remaining. Thankfully, Lowes was uninjured but will start from 16th and the sixth row for Sunday’s 18-lap race.

“Of course, I’m disappointed with today,” Lowes admitted honestly after qualifying. “I had yellow flags during my first two laps of the session and had to go slowly. Either my lap time was cancelled or I didn’t push. Then on the next lap I made a mistake and crashed. So, we didn’t get any laps in qualifying and we have to start the race from 16th.

“Our pace is quite good, but this track is difficult and we know it will be a hard race from there. I want to say sorry to the guys and we’ll try again tomorrow.”